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Photos by Liam McCabe

The Best Beer Brewing Kit

Published June 16, 2017

Your guide

Tyler Wells Lynch

After doing more than 25 hours of research—including interviews with homebrewing experts, hands-on testing with seven kits, and a trip to Aeronaut Brewing Co. in Massachusetts—we’ve found that the Brew Share Enjoy Homebrew Starter Kit is the best for most first-timers. This kit from Northern Brewer strikes the best balance of price, availability, clarity of instructions, and number of included essential tools.

The Brew Share Enjoy kit has everything you need to begin brewing, including a 5-gallon kettle (essentially a large stock pot) and a 21-inch stirring spoon—two items most other kits in this price category don’t include. It has better brewing instructions than other kits, and it’s the only one that comes with laminated general brewing guidelines (a nice touch for the messy brewing process). While the quality of the beer produced in any kit depends on a huge number of variables (most of which are in the brewer’s hands), the amber ale recipe in this one is a safe choice for any fan of craft beer.

Midwest Supplies Platinum Pro Beer Brewing Starter Kit is nearly a duplicate of our top pick (Midwest and Northern Brewer are owned by the same company). Like the Brew Share Enjoy kit, it comes with a 5-gallon kettle and a stirring spoon, as well as everything else you need to begin brewing right away. But while the Northern Brewer kit includes an auto-siphon for transferring beer from one vessel to another, the Midwest kit has a racking cane—a less hygienic, manual siphon—and the included instructions aren’t as clear, so we give the edge to the Northern Brewer kit.

If you already own a 5-gallon pot, we’d recommend the Beer. Simply Beer. Starter Beer Brewing Kit from Midwest Supplies. It costs about half as much as our top picks and has everything you need to begin brewing right out of the box, except for a brew kettle. The instructions are clearer and more thorough than those included with our runner-up pick (also produced by Midwest Supplies), and it even comes with a hydrometer (a tool for determining a beer’s alcohol level), which is something that both of our top picks lack. The kit doesn’t come with a stirring spoon and an auto-siphon, as well as bottle caps (but you can purchase all of those separately). Like our picks with kettles, this one comes with only one recipe, a pale ale.

If you’re intimidated by the volume of a 5-gallon kit or don’t have a lot of space to make your own beer, consider a 1-gallon kit. While the effort involved is still considerable, the smaller size makes the process less intense. The Midwest Micro Bru was the only 1-gallon kit we found that comes with more of the most important tools you need to brew, ferment, and bottle your beer in sanitary conditions. It includes fewer recipes than some kits, but you can always graduate to more exotic brews once you’ve mastered the process.

Why you should trust us

I’ve been brewing beer on and off for more than six years, in which time I’ve brewed close to 100 gallons of beer of all different styles. I started with a standard partial mash 5-gallon homebrew kit like the ones found in this guide, but eventually I progressed to the all-grain brew-in-a-bag method with a 10-gallon aluminum kettle. I’ve built wort chillers and heat sticks from scratch, studied two of the most well-respected homebrew books (How to Brew and The Complete Joy of Homebrewing), and I’ve made lots of mistakes.

To round out the gaps in my knowledge, I talked to a few homebrewing experts: John Palmer, author of How to Brew and co-host of the Brew Strong podcast; Gary Glass, director of the American Homebrewers Association; and Ben Holmes, CEO of Aeronaut Brewing Co. in Somerville, Massachusetts. I also spent an afternoon getting drunk with the brewery director at Aeronaut and touring the facilities to get an idea of how pros approach brewing.

Who should get this

If you’re interested in learning the craft of beer brewing, a kit can be a great place to start. The tools you find in most pre-packaged kits are generally of comparable quality to those you can buy individually, and a kit has everything you need (including recipes and ingredients) to brew, ferment, and bottle your homebrew.

We recommend that most first-time brewers buy a 5-gallon kit. Given the time and effort involved in brewing, it’s worth having a larger yield to show for your work. But if you’re tight on space (maybe you live in a cramped city apartment) or you’d like a cheaper option for learning, you may prefer a 1-gallon kit.

How we picked

The ideal kit should include everything you need to begin brewing a straightforward recipe, right out of the box. It should come with essential tools and a complete recipe kit, as well as thorough instructions that don’t have you running to Google in search of clarity. And it should cost less than $120; any entry-level kit that costs more than that begins to exceed the cost of buying each item individually. All the experts we spoke with also agreed that $100 to $120 is the target price you should expect to pay as a first-time brewer.

What a kit should include

5-gallon kettle

This is priority number one. If you already have an adequately sized kettle (like a lobster pot), you can use that. Most kits come with a stainless steel kettle, which is easy to clean and won’t react to oxygen-based cleaners (like aluminum will). There is some debate as to whether you want the metal to be thick or thin, but for first-time brewers it’s best to focus on overall size. Going with a minimum size of 5 gallons will help avoid boil-overs. A lid will help retain heat (although you don’t need a tight-fitting lid), and roomy handles that are comfortable to hold make it easier to move the kettle to a suitable racking location. (“Racking” refers to the process of transferring the beer from one vessel to another, usually from the fermenter to the bottling bucket.)

Extract/partial mash recipe kit with muslin bags for steeping grains

Obviously you need the main ingredients for brewing beer: grain, hops, water, yeast. A good kit will include clear instructions and hermetically sealed packets of fresh hops and yeast. Every kit will include malt extract (concentrated grain sugar, either in liquid or powdered form). Ideally you’ll want some steeping grains too; these are whole grains that you place inside a muslin bag (cheesecloth folded into a bag) and steep in the water prior to the boil process, adding color and a bit more complexity than a brew made from just malt extract would yield.

Sanitizer/cleaner

Sanitation is everything. Once you’ve finished boiling, literally everything that comes in contact with the wort (unfermented beer) or beer needs to be sanitized. John Palmer, author of How to Brew, put it simply: “The number one priority to brewing great beer is sanitation.” He recommends Star San, an acid-based liquid sanitizer that doesn’t require rinsing, and as an experienced homebrewer I agree: Star San is the easiest, most effective sanitizer available. (Just keep in mind that this stuff is super caustic; best to closely follow the manufacturer’s instructions.) If your kit doesn’t come with it, don’t worry. Most brew kits include an “oxygen wash” (a non-chlorine bleach, like OxiClean), like the one pictured, and it should be all that first-time brewers need.

Spoon

You need to stir that beer while it’s boiling. Anything longer than 14 inches is fine—but the sweet spot is probably 21 inches (like the one shown here). This size gives you ample room to stir up to 4 gallons of wort without getting your hands near it. We recommend stainless steel because it’s easiest to clean, although some kits may come with a plastic spoon, which is still fine.

Fermenting bucket with lid

The wort (unfermented beer) goes in this bucket after you’ve finished brewing. Every brew kit includes one of these; usually it comes in the form of a 6-gallon, food-grade plastic bucket. The most important feature of this bucket is that the lid seals tightly; otherwise CO2 will escape during the fermenting process. The lid should have an O-ring to help keep the seal tight and a small hole fitted with a gasket (to attach the airlock, see below). Unless you come across some unusual kit with a proprietary conical design, you’ll likely find the same type of fermenting bucket as in these kits (all those we tested were).

Airlock

Airlocks allow carbon dioxide (a by-product of fermentation) to escape the fermenter (by bubbling it through a water seal) without letting oxygen in. There are two different designs: three-piece and S-shaped (as pictured); these look different but work the same way. Good airlocks should be made of high-quality plastic that won’t crack with normal use.

Siphon with vinyl tubing

You use a siphon to transfer beer from one vessel to another, usually from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. There are two primary siphon designs: the auto-siphon (pictured) and the racking cane. Most kits come with an auto-siphon, which uses a simple pump mechanism; it’s easier to use, more effective, and more sanitary. The plunger that fits inside the tube should fit snugly, so it effectively sucks up the liquid—otherwise you’ll end up drawing just air. Among the kits we tested, the auto-siphons were all identical.

I have never used a racking cane and do not understand their appeal, other than that they are slightly cheaper; these are traditional siphons, so you suck one end of the tubing to create negative pressure and draw the beer out of the fermenter and into the bottling bucket. We don’t think it’s worth the $5 to $10 in savings over an auto-siphon.

Bottling bucket with vinyl tubing and spigot

This is the vessel used to fill the bottles with fermented beer. All the bottling buckets we’ve come across in our tests are identical: a 6-gallon food-grade plastic bucket with a screw-on spigot and rubber gasket along the bottom. You’ll attach vinyl tubing to the spigot on one end, and a bottle filler on the other. The fermented beer will travel through this apparatus and into the bottles for bottle conditioning (carbonation). You’ll want to make sure the gasket seal is as tight as possible to prevent leaks.

Bottle capper, caps, and bottle filler (optional: CO2 tablets)

After you’re done storing and conditioning your beer, the last step is putting it in bottles. We haven’t seen any design variations on the capper (pictured above), although there are some larger cappers intended for use with 750 mL champagne bottles. (Keep that in mind if you intend to bottle in champagne bottles; you’ll need bigger caps.) The best bottle fillers are spring-loaded and do not leak when the trigger isn’t pushed.

Strainer/muslin bag

Most kits we tested come with a single muslin bag, which is used to hold your steeping grains while mashing. Some brewers also use them during the racking process to filter out “trub,” the thick bed of sediment that accumulates at the bottom of the fermenter. (If you have one, a fine mesh sieve will also do the trick.) One muslin bag is enough for your first brew, but you’ll want to stock up on them as you advance and start buying your own recipe ingredients.

Bottle brush

Brushes are absolutely essential if your bottles have been used previously. You’ll want one that has nylon bristles and that’s thin enough to fit inside the narrow neck of a bottle. We found these things were pretty much the same in all the kits.

We consider the items listed above essential to any brew kit. But we looked for kits that also included the following useful (but non-essential) tools:

Hydrometer

This is the tool used to measure your beer’s “gravity”—its density compared with water. Why do you need to know this? It’s how you measure the beer’s alcohol content (ABV). Ethanol is less dense than water, so when the yeast starts excreting it out in your beer, it decreases the overall density of the mixture. You take measurements before and after fermentation, which lets you understand the degree to which the yeast is converting sugars into alcohol. A hydrometer is easy to use, fairly inexpensive, and helpful when beginning to take the craft more seriously. It’s nice to have a hydrometer included in a starter kit, but if you don’t get one, we recommend looking for one that comes with a measuring flask, rather than just the hydrometer.

Thermometer

Temperature is a critical consideration at every point in the beer-making process—from brewing to fermenting to bottling to refrigerating. Personally, I like stainless steel dial thermometers, as they’re easily readable and have clips that you can fasten to the brim of the kettle. Glass immersion thermometers work fine, but they’re a bit fragile. Glass floating thermometers are a bit more durable, but reading them can be a bit of a challenge. If your kit doesn’t come with one (and we didn’t find many that did), there’s no need to spend more than $15.

Pull Quote

Every expert we spoke to agreed on one thing: It’s best to keep it simple your first time around.

We couldn’t find a single kit within our target price range that had all of these items. There were always one or two things missing—usually the kettle, but sometimes the spoon, hydrometer, brush, or bottle caps. We also found that often the differences between kits are often pretty negligible—more often than not, it’s just a matter of a missing spoon or bottle brush or a different type of airlock.

We looked for kits on Amazon, Northern Brewer, Midwest Supplies, and Austin Homebrew Supply. We focused on the number of tools included, the design of certain tools (like the siphon), and the quality and clarity of the instructions. We also looked at price, online user reviews, and availability. We initially considered 23 different homebrew kits, then brought that list down to seven for testing: five 5-gallon kits and two 1-gallon kits.

Once we had our picks, we paid a visit to Aeronaut Brewing Co. in Somerville, Massachusetts—just to run our thinking by them and to hear professional brewers’ opinions about these kits. They agreed with our approach to this guide, but with the caveat that any seriously motivated first-timer should pay a visit to a homebrew supply shop. It’s a great way to get your questions answered, and to go hands-on with all the different tools, utensils, and ingredients needed to brew. The folks at Aeronaut were adamant that brewing is a community activity, and homebrew shops are sort of like the town halls of that community. We also recommend checking out sites like How to Brew, the American Homebrewers Association, or Northern Brewer. They each provide comprehensive instructions for the brewing process that can be tailored to your particular level of expertise. Every expert we spoke to agreed on one thing: It’s best to keep it simple your first time around.

How we tested

The actual testing process was a simple one, considering the most important factors that make a good brewing kit can be determined from the list of items included in the kit. Our testing process was more a matter of getting our top contenders into one room and searching for details that aren’t evident from the box or the buy page, including things like instructions, sanitizer volume, and recipe features. The material and design differences between individual tools in the kits was virtually non-existent (with the exception of the siphons/racking canes and the airlocks), so it was impossible to assess the material or experiential quality of each.

Once we had all our kits in one room, we unpacked them and looked at each individual item. The fermenting and bottling buckets were all the same size and all made from the same food-grade polyethylene; the siphons, with the exception of two, were all auto-siphons of the exact same design and material; the bottle fillers and bottle cappers were all identical; the tubing was all vinyl hosing of the exact same length; most of the kits had S-shaped airlocks.

Given this, we paid more attention to the recipe kits and the instructions. We pored through each set of instructions and looked for thoroughness, illustrations, and other helpful points of information, then made subjective calls as to which ones were the most helpful. Finally, we looked at the recipe kits themselves, focusing on the quality of the seals, the volume of sanitizer included, and whether it included any steeping grains. We didn’t give too much weight to the recipes. The included tools are far more important, because you can always just restock with better hops, yeast, or other ingredients, or just buy an entirely different recipe kit. As John Palmer told us, “A good fermentation of a bad recipe is going to make a better beer than the bad fermentation of a great recipe.”

Last, we made some beer. We brewed a full, 5-gallon batch with our top pick to make sure there were no unforeseen issues. We followed the instructions to the letter and used only the tools and utensils that were provided, and we did the same for a our 1-gallon pick.

To be clear—and this may seem counterintuitive to some—we did not judge these kits based on the quality of the beer we were able to brew. It’s just way too subjective, and the variables in the beer’s production are way too fickle, to definitively claim one kit is going to produce a better beer than another. Judging a kit for the quality of the beer you produce is sort of like judging a video game console for the quality of a game you bought; yes, there may be some minor hardware differences between systems, but you’re not about to write a letter to Microsoft because you hated the new Call of Duty game.

If we were looking into brewing beer for the first time, we would get the Northern Brewer Brew Share Enjoy Homebrew Starter Kit. For about $100, it includes everything you need to begin brewing right out of the box, including a 5-gallon stainless steel kettle and a 21-inch stainless steel stirring spoon—two items that tend to be absent from most brewing kits, not to mention most kitchens. We ultimately gave the nod to the Brew Share Enjoy kit because it also comes with an auto-siphon (unlike our runner-up, which includes a racking cane), and we liked the included instructions better. In fact, it was the only kit that included an auto-siphon as well as a kettle and a spoon, making it a clear pick.

The fact that the Brew Share Enjoy kit comes with a kettle was a major selling point for us, especially when we considered the kit’s price, availability, quality of instructions, and other packaged utensils. It was one of three contenders that included a kettle (or at least offered the option of adding one). Most starter kits do not come with a kettle.

The other standout component is the spoon. Of the 23 starter kits we looked at, this was one of only four that included a spoon (all of them 21 inches long); it was also one of four out of the seven kits we tested that came with an auto-siphon instead of a racking cane.

The Brew Share Enjoy kit includes a set of recipe-specific instructions, a checklist of tools and ingredients with a few tips for good practices, and—something we haven’t seen in any other kit—a set of color, laminated general brewing instructions. The lamination was especially helpful considering how messy brewing can be, with paper instructions prone to getting soaked in sticky wort or sanitizer. The instructions were easy to follow, and I would definitely recommend that any newbie sit down and read them from beginning to end before doing anything.

While we would have preferred all the necessary literature (inventory checklists, brewing guidelines, recipe instructions, tips, resources, glossary of terms) to be collected in one convenient booklet, as was the case with a couple of other kits, everything was still sensibly organized on separate sheets of paper, more so than with both of the Midwest Supplies kits we tested.

The Block Party Amber Ale recipe kit includes one packet of hops, a package of pre-milled malted steeping grains, a muslin bag for the steeping grains, a 6-pound jug of liquid malt extract, dry ale yeast, sanitizer, and priming sugar for bottling. For first-timers, that’s about as simple as it gets, and simple is what you want.

There is absolutely no reason to suspect that the buckets, the siphon, the capper, the bottle filler, or anything else included in the Brew Share Enjoy kit will deteriorate before (oroutlast) those of any other kit. They’re literally the same items as you’ll find in any of these kits, and—speaking as someone who has brewed with this sort of equipment for seven years—they all work fine. Any point of frustration we encountered while brewing can be attributed to the design of a specific tool or process, not the kit itself. The bottling process, for example, was a total headache. It was messy, complicated, and required an extreme level of multitasking (I was by myself)—but that’s how bottling always is. I’ve never seen a homebrew kit that includes anything (even at the $600+ price range) that might ameliorate the hassle that is bottling. Every kit that I’ve seen has the same bottling rig: a bottling bucket with a bottle filler and capper.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Brew Share Enjoy kit doesn’t include a hydrometer. This is not necessary to brew right out of the box, but if you want to know how alcoholic your beer is, and if you want to know when primary fermentation has finished, you need to buy one. Four of the kits we tested didn’t come with one, but the good news is they’re cheap, and they all work more or less the same. Box Brew Kits’s Triple Scale Hydrometer includes a plastic base and a glass testing flask. Good enough.

None of the 5-gallon kits we tested included a proper brewing thermometer; each one came with an adhesive thermometer for attaching to the fermenter, but those things are not super accurate and in any case you can usually tell whether your beer is in the ideal temperature range (65 °F to 75 °F) by feel alone. You don’t absolutely need a brewing thermometer, basically, and we didn’t dock this kit any points for the lack of one, but we recommend buying one anyway if you get serious about your brewing.

Finally, we would have liked a few more recipe options. Amber ales are a safe bet, since anyone who enjoys beer enough to dabble in homebrewing is going to like this style. However, a little more variety might have better rounded out some of those individual tastes. Most of the other kits we looked at had at least a few recipe options, even if they had to be purchased separately. In any case, the great thing about owning your own brewing kit is that once you have the basic equipment, next time around you’ll only need the recipe kit, and those things generally cost $30 to $35.

The Midwest Supplies Platinum Pro kit is nearly identical to the Northern Brewer kit (not surprising, considering Midwest and Northern Brewer are both owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev). But the Platinum Pro has a racking cane instead of an auto-siphon, which was a major drawback for us. We were also turned off by the instructions, which were slightly more vague and confusing than the Brew Share Enjoy kit’s. The third key difference is in the Platinum’s Pro’s recipe kit, which is for a pale ale rather than an amber ale—a matter of personal preference more than anything else.

The Midwest Supplies kit includes a racking cane instead of an auto-siphon, which is its biggest drawback in our opinion. We feel racking canes, as we’ve discussed earlier, aren’t as convenient to use and not worth the minimal cost savings.

The Platinum Pro instructions were sparser than the Northern Brewer kit’s, with a single page for the specific recipe and a simple two-page set of directions for more general brewing. Both were somewhat minimal on the details, and when it comes to brewing, detail is not something to sneeze at. Some of the language is a bit vague, more so than I would prefer as a first-time brewer. There are also some crucial details missing. For example, as with most brew kits, this is a recipe for a concentrated mash. That means the malt is brewed using a smaller volume of water (roughly 2 or 3 gallons), with the idea being to dilute the wort after the boil in order to bring the total volume up to the standard 5 gallons. These instructions make no mention of adding that extra volume of water after the boil—something that a novice brewer could easily overlook. This isn’t to say the Midwest instructions are guaranteed to confuse you, but when it comes to first-time brewers, it’s important to be specific. These instructions are not specific.

Brew Share Enjoy comes with an amber ale recipe; Platinum Pro, a pale ale. Don’t spend too much time worrying about your first ever recipe—the main goal here is to simply learn the craft. But if you have a strong preference for pale ale, and you don’t mind using a racking cane, there’s really so little difference between these two kits that you should probably just go with the Platinum Pro. Each recipe is pretty straightforward, featuring a package of malted grains, one packet of hops, liquid malt extract, a muslin bag, dry yeast, and corn sugar for bottling and carbonation.

If you already have an adequately sized kettle, or if your budget is smaller, we recommend the Beer. Simply Beer. kit from Midwest Supplies. The biggest thing this kit has going for it is its price. It is far and away the least expensive 5-gallon kit we came across in our research, and unlike our top two picks, it includes a hydrometer with a glass testing flask. It is missing an auto-siphon (it has a racking cane instead), but we thought this was acceptable given the price, as it still includes everything you need to brew right out of the box, other than the kettle.

The Beer. Simply Beer. set includes a complete recipe kit that, surprisingly, features more well-rounded and detailed instructions than our runner-up Midwest Supplies kit. The recipe itself is every bit as robust and complex as those included with our main picks. The instructions are extremely thorough and look more like the recipe from the Northern Brewer top pick than the other Midwest Supplies pick. The company’s Beer. Simply Beer. kit’s included hydrometer is another major selling point.

There are a few downsides to this kit, but they’re pretty marginal. Like our two top picks, you only have one option for a recipe kit, a pale ale in this case. In addition to lacking a kettle and an auto-siphon, it’s also missing a spoon and bottle caps.

If your space is limited and you don’t want to deal with the volume of a 5-gallon kit, go for the Midwest Supplies Micro Bru All-Grain Brewing Kit. It’s the best option among small-batch kits because it provides more necessary tools than its competitors at only a slightly higher price. It includes more bottling equipment than other 1-gallon kits—specifically, a bottle filler, a capper, and caps—as well as a mini auto-siphon and a larger volume of sanitizer.

All of these extra items are necessary if you plan on bottling your beer (as opposed to kegging it or storing it in growlers or swing-top bottles), and the auto-siphon is more convenient and sanitary than a racking cane. All this comes at an affordable price, about as much as four growlers full of craft beer.

On the flip side, a competitive kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop offers a hell of a lot more recipes than Midwest Supplies—17 to the Midwest’s two. We were okay with this trade-off since we think first-time brewers should keep things simple and focus their attention on learning the craft. A recipe kit only has enough ingredients for one batch, but the tools that come with the brewing kit can be used indefinitely.

There will, of course, be people who would prefer to have more recipe options, even if it’s their first time brewing. If that’s you, by all means, go with Brooklyn Brew Shop. The rest of the tools included in these kits—the ones shared by both BBS and Midwest—are virtually identical.

Care and maintenance

As mentioned above, sanitation is everything. That applies to the brewing and bottling process as much as it does to storing your brew kit. Always wash, scrub, and sanitize your bottling bucket and fermenter after they’ve been used. The same goes for the tubing, siphon, bottle filler, kettle, and anything else that comes into contact with the wort/beer. Once everything has been cleaned and sanitized and dried, store it someplace where it’s not too humid—mildew will infest a bucket that hasn’t been properly sanitized after spending weeks swarming with microbial yeast.

If you plan on reusing beer bottles, make sure you rinse them clean with hot water before storing them in anticipation of bottling day. And before you bottle your beer, you’ll definitely want to scrub those bottles with the bottle brush, then give them a thorough rinse with a good sanitizer. Using filthy bottles is the surest way to ruin a batch of beer that is otherwise perfect.

A lot of the items in your kit will need to be replaced often—a point that will become obvious as soon as your second brew. Muslin bags, for example, can only be used once; airlocks, tubing, and stoppers get moldy; caps rust; bottles break. For the more expendable items like tubing and airlocks, we recommend replacing them if you see mildew forming. When in doubt about the sanitary condition of a given item, just go ahead and replace it. Most of these items are cheap anyway, but your beer is precious. Treat it well.

The competition

Five-gallon kits

BSG Brewer’s Fundamentals Homebrew Kit: This kit doesn’t include a kettle or a brewing spoon. That said, it has an extremely comprehensive brewing guidebook, with color instructions, FAQ, glossary, beer style guide, and other useful info. If I were a first-time brewer feeling a little intimidated by the process, this would be extremely reassuring. This kit also offers three different recipe options, one of which (Nut Brown Ale) features a really complex variety of hops, sugars, and specialty grains that I found really compelling.

Austin Homebrew Supply Beginner Homebrew Kit: This kit does not include a spoon or caps, and it came packaged with a totally unnecessary volume of styrofoam peanuts that I kept finding scattered throughout my kitchen for weeks. However, AHS offers four different recipe options. That makes it the second-cheapest 5-gallon kit we tested (after the $50 Beer. Simply Beer. kit). You can tag on a 5-gallon stainless steel kettle for an extra $20, and the whole thing comes with a comprehensive brewing guide similar to the one found in the BSG kit.

Northern Brewer Go Pro Small Batch Beer Brewing Kit: This kit is considerably more expensive than the other 1-gallon kits, it relies partially on malt extract, and it offers only one recipe option (Chinook IPA). However, we did like that it includes two pint glasses, a hydrometer, and bottles, which you don’t often see included in brew kits.

Nice article, very informative. I’ve never brewed beer but have an interest in it. Could you comment on what kind of storage is needed during brewing and for how long?

Tyler

Thanks Jim! Fermentation typically lasts 1-2 weeks, depending on a variety of factors. Most kits (at least all the ones in this guide) will have you ferment in a 6.5-gallon plastic bucket (like this one here: http://www.northernbrewer.com/6-5-gallon-fermenting-bucket). These things are about a foot-and-a-half tall and roughly a foot in diameter. You can fit them in a closet or stash them in a basement—anywhere away from sunlight. After fermentation you’ll need to bottle the beer, which may require another 1-3 weeks of conditioning, depending on a number of factors. (Again keep away from sunlight!) That will require a few dozen 12-ounce bottles to stash all five gallons and will mostly likely take up more space than the fermenter.

One-gallon kits obviously only require a 1-gallon fermenter (usually just a glass jug), which is a lot easier in terms of conserving space in your home. However, the fermentation/conditioning times are just as long.

Hope that helps!

Felipe Cardozo

Just got the P series last week based on all the reviews and we love it! Decided to finally take the plunge as we found out Best Buy was no longer carrying them. We were able to find a Costco in our area that still had them. We paid $1599. Just saw Costco.com is advertising them a week later for $1499. Definitely going back for a price adjustment but if anyone has been thinking about getting one you probably want to act fast!

SteveH

Thanks for the great rundown, lots of good information.

Just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts standard Northern Brewer 1 gallon kit (http://www.northernbrewer.com/1-gallon-small-batch-starter-kit)? It has a lower price than the Norther Brewer Pro Kit, has a decent selection of recipes, and seems to be similarly equipped to Midwest 1 gallon kit you recommend.

Tyler

Thanks! Yeah that Northern Brewer kit is pretty much identical to our top 1-gallon pick. (Midwest and Northern Brewer are both owned by AB InBev.) I’d say go for it if you like the recipe selection. The experience will be the same as the Midwest version.

A little curious why you skip the “Mr Beer” option for the 1-2 gallon selection? While I understand it isn’t quite as “pure” a brewing experience, it has seemed to me like a decent introduction – particularly for folks who are still trying to decide if this is “for them” or not.

Am also hoping you might do a follow-up on best mini-fridges to use for ensuring constant fermentation temps. Cool dark corners are ok, but I keep thinking I could get better control if the temp was better controlled.

Tyler

Mr. Beer kits are a good way to be introduced to brewing, but they’re not very good for leveling up. The kits in this guide are all modular; nothing is proprietary. You can mix and match and replace all the items and the brewing experience is going to be the same. That’s not the case with Mr. Beer. Their fermenters are trademarked, all-on-one sort of things that only work with Mr. Beer, and the process itself cuts a lot of corners so you don’t learn as much as you probably should given the time and effort involved. We also didn’t like how the bottles are plastic with screw-on caps (less airtight), or how they don’t come with steeping grains. This was an opinion that was shared by all our experts as well. I’m sure if you get a Mr. Beer the beer itself will be perfectly decent, but as far as learning and advancing with the craft, the standard modular kinds of kits like those found in this guide are the way to go.

Re: mini fridges, you don’t want to ferment in a mini fridge unless you’re making a lager (ales prefer temps of around 70-75°F), and you’d be hard-pressed to find one that can fit a 6.5-gallon bucket or carboy anyway. One thing we do want to look into in the future, though, is how to best convert a mini fridge into a kegerator. Stay tuned!

Chris S.

I’m going to have to disagree with the idea that “you don’t want to ferment in a mini fridge unless you’re making a lager.” Lots of ales are improved by fermenting outside the temperature range you mention, not to mention hybrid styles like steam beer/California common and Kölsch. Using a mini-fridge or other temperature controlled chamber also allows the brewer to cold crash for clearer beer.

Tyler

That’s interesting. I’ve heard of some ale recipes calling for temps as low as 55-60°F, but that’s still quite higher than what a mini fridge could reliably maintain. In any case it’s sort of outside the scope of this guide. I personally have no experience using mini fridges for fermentation, but I hope to look into it in the future.

Chris S.

I know it’s not in the scope of this guide, but it seemed to be relevant to what EwanG was asking. If someone can find a mini fridge that is big enough to hold a bucket or carboy, then it’s incredibly easy to set up simple, cheap temperature controller (like the Inkbird 308, for around $35) to keep keep things at whatever setting you want. (Anything too high might require something to heat the chamber as well, like a heating pad, aquarium heating strip, or a specially designed carboy wrap.)

If you’ve got the space, I think chest freezers are probably a better option.

Paul

Given that you know Midwest and Northern have the same ownership, seems odd that you allowed them to be half of the options you considered. There’s a lot more out there.

Also, given that one of the motivations people have for brewing their own beer is to avoid giant beer conglomerates, using a giant beer company’s home brew option for half your tested producuts seems doubly odd.

Tyler

Thanks Paul. When it comes to learning how to brew beer, we didn’t think most people would care much about which brand or corporation they’d prefer to give their money to—at least not as much as things like: how affordable the kit is, whether it has everything they need to begin brewing right away, whether it has a recipe they’ll enjoy drinking, how clear and informative the instructions are, and whether or not the kit is actually available to them. It may be that Midwest/Northern Brewer are better able to meet these criteria because of their substantial coffers—I don’t know—but the fact is, they do. And we thought that was what most people care about.

Also, we stressed throughout the guide that the best idea is to go to your local home brew shop to talk to experts and find a kit that’s best for your needs. That kit you end up buying may or may not be a Midwest or Northern Brewer kit. But seeing as we’re in the business of finding the best pick for most people, that pick needs to meet all our criteria (which we outline in the How We Picked section). It also needs to be available online, and, equally important, it needs to be in ready supply. You’re right: There’s a lot out there, and we weighed dozens upon dozens of different kits against one another to find the best—but we cannot consider a pick that’s not widely available to most people.

Chris S.

I’m kind of disappointed that you didn’t include any upgrade picks with larger kettles (for full rather than partial boil) and glass/plastic carboys. ALSO disappointed that you didn’t review any kits from MoreBeer, or the many other online homebrew shops that AREN’T owned by AB-InBev.

Tyler

Hey Chris. The focus of this guide was on entry-level kits for people who have little to no experience brewing. We may look into offering a more advanced/upgrade pick in the future.

With regards to MoreBeer, we looked closely at all of their kits (https://www.morebeer.com/category/homebrewing-starter-kits.html), but we ultimately disqualified them for a few reasons: When looking at the two $130 kits, one includes a glass carboy, which is cool, but probably not necessary for a novice; more importantly, though, it doesn’t include a kettle or a recipe kit, both of which we prioritized in our list of contenders.

The other $130 kit includes a recipe kit and a kettle (as well as a plastic carboy, which is less ideal than glass, in our opinion), and that’s cool—but it’s $30 more than our top pick, which includes the same items. We were also concerned about how novices would deal with transferring their wort to the carboy after brewing; as far as we can tell, this kit has neither a siphon or a funnel, making the process rather challenging. That said, $130 is a pretty good deal for a kit that comes with a carboy. We just thought that the simplicity and affordability of our top two picks would be better for most folks. If you’d prefer a plastic carboy and don’t mind spending the extra $30, by all means go for it!

Finally, there’s a $70 MoreBeer kit, which is certainly affordable but it does not include a kettle, spoon, siphon, or recipe kit—too bare bones, in our opinion.

Also, as far as we can tell, none of these kits comes with an auto-siphon; they either don’t have a racking system or they include a racking cane.

Again, we should stress that going to your local homebrew shop is the best way to find the right kit for your needs. Our picks are meant to satisfy the widest spectrum of buyers.

Chris S.

I understand that the focus of the guide was on very entry-level kits, but I’m used to the content on the Wirecutter having “upgrade options.”

Addressing your comment on transferring wort to the fermentation vessel, I don’t think the lack of a funnel makes any difference at all when you’re pouring into the gaping maw of a bucket. And as far as autosiphons go, why would you need one when both the included buckets/carboys have spigots, and gravity is easier to deal with than a siphon?

Out of curiosity, why do you think that glass is more preferable than plastic? Most plastic carboys (including the Fermonsters offered as part of the MoreBeer kit) are made of PET that is less oxygen permeable than buckets, although not as impermeable as glass. (Although at the homebrew scale, it’s probably not really something to be worried about anyway.) Plus, they’re way more difficult to break (if you’ve never broken a glass carboy, you’ll understand how awesome that is) and their wide mouths make cleaning easier. The only downside I can think of is the possibility of critters hiding in scratched plastic, but that’s easily avoided by not using abrasives when cleaning them.

Christopher Pagnotta

Glad to see homebrewing covered at wirecutter and you’ve got a lot of good info in here.

One important point to correct: Oxyclean and other oxygen based cleaners are great for cleaning gear, but they’re not sanitizers and there’s a big difference. After equipment is cleaned only a sanitizer will reliably provide the necessary protection against microbial infections that will spoil the flavor of beer.

Alternatives to star san are iodophor or properly diluted bleach, but in my opinion neither is as easy to work with as star san.